Samuel Pepys’ Penny Merriments, selected and edited by Roger Thompson, published 1977, features highlights from Pepys’s collection of 115 tiny chapbooks. These were cheap pamphlets sold on the streets of London, obtained by Samuel Pepys (1633-1703). Pepys was known for his diaries which give a clear insight into life in London in the 1600s. 

Here is The Second Tale, from a chapbook called The Merry Tales of the Mad-Men of Gotam, by A. B., Dr. of Physick: There was a man of Gotam did ride to the Market with two bushels of wheat, and because his Horse should not bear heavy he carried his Corn upon his own neck, and did ride upon the horse, because his Horse should not carry too heavy a Burden Judge you which was the wisest, his Horse or himself.

— See Samuel Pepys’ Penny Merriments, edited by Roger Thompson, Columbia University Press, New York, 1977.